Frank Cain

Surveillant 4.1 notes that this book provides an "analysis ... of the innovative administrative and parliamentary controls which have been established for intelligence bodies in Australia as well as a discussion of the future of ASIO." Peake, WIR
16.3, hangs a "Reader, beware" sign on this work. Primary in
this determination is Cain's "assertion that Petrov ... was a 'planted
defector'" and his wildly inaccurate generalizations about Golitsin.

According to Rich, WIR 14.1, Cain's
work includes "an excellent summary of the operations of the forerunners"
of ASIO. This is "a well-documented book," and its failures "are
those of judgment rather than scholarship. Dr. Cain does not ... think
that the Communists were a real threat to Australia. So the security measures
seem draconian and highly intrusive.... Nevertheless, the Communists had
a worldwide agenda, and this would have been a better book if Dr. Cain
had demonstrated an awareness of that fact."

For Lustgarten, I&NS 11.1, the
historical part of Cain's account is "well-researched" and his
analysis "generally persuasive." However, his "discussion
of more recent developments ... seems ... somewhat less so. It is unduly
grudging in its appreciation of the changes set in train by the appointment
of Mr Justice Robert M. Hope ... to inquire into ASIO."

Clark comment:
Perhaps the strongest negative comment to be made on Cain's work is retrospective
in nature, that is, the author's doubts about the existence of the Venona
material and, consequently, his disbelief in Australian nationals' involvement
with Soviet espionage organizations. His strongest criticisms of ASIO ring
even more hollow today than they did when written.

[Australia/Gen]

Cain,
Frank. "Missiles and Mistrust: US Intelligence Responses to British
and Australian Missile Research." Intelligence and National Security
3, no. 4 (Oct. 1988): 5-22.

The focus here is on the period from the end of
World War II to late 1950. The author's position: Those big bad Americans
got more than they gave. Yeah, sure.

This work concerns the Investigation Branch of
the Australian Attorney-General's Department which functioned from 1920
to 1949. Cain picks up the story in his later work, The Australian Security
Intelligence Organization: An Unofficial History (London: Frank Cass,
1994).

[Australia/Gen]

Cain,
Frank. "The Right to Know: ASIO, Historians and the Australian Parliament."
Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 1 (Jan. 1993): 87- 101.

Australian Sigint people worked alongside their American counterparts
in the Central Bureau after MacArthur and his people arrived from the Philippines
in 1942. Personnel at the Bureau were "roughly 50 per cent American,
25 per cent Australian Army and 25 per cent Australian Air Force."

The central conclusion here -- that the information
contained in the Canberra/Moscow Venona materials exacerbated tensions
between the U.S. government and the Labor government in Australia -- is
primarily a yawner. The author's clear distaste for R.G. Menzies clouds
many of his judgments.